Tramps

There was an article in the Times about ten pretty good indie films Netflix has made for their platform, and I'd only seen one of them (Tallulah) so I added them all to my "watchlist" (the live-streaming version of the "queue") and took a look at Tramps, written and directed by Adam Leon. It's an okay film that is undone by cliches.

There are two parallel stories that have a boy and a girl meeting. At first they dislike each other (well, she dislikes him). They are involved in a caper, with some narrow escapes, and of course by the end she likes him. I think part of this taps into male fantasy, as there is no real chemistry between them and for them to run off together is inevitable but not authentic.

Callum Turner is Danny, a would-be chef. His older brother is a criminal who is to deliver a briefcase to a woman on a subway platform. Danny is driven there by Ellie (Grace Van Patten, part of the seeming endless Van Patten acting family). She is a kind of bruised figure, running from what we infer is an abusive boyfriend.

Turner fucks things up so they have to get it right, lest the underworld types who are behind this will anger, which involves them going to the Westchester suburbs to retrieve the briefcase. This is, I suppose, to contrast the world of the elite with their low-level existence (Turner lives in an apartment with his mother, who runs a betting parlor in it). He's the quintessential nice guy, she's the sullen girl, like the old Fiona Apple song (Van Patten is fine, but she seems to have taken tips from Shailene Woodley).

Tramps is only an hour and a half but feels longer--it could have been an hour easy. There are an incredible amount of trips on mass transit. Watching the film is like riding a subway that is taking longer than usual to get to its destination.